Pathfinder (2007) Movie Review

“A Viking boy is left behind after his clan battles a Native American tribe. Raised within the tribe, he ultimately becomes their savoir in a fight against the Norsemen. “

Hagar the Horrible would rather spend a night at home with his wife than watch Pathfinder, a mostly silent and shallow remake of a 1987 movie nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Just as Ghost (Karl Urban) searches for his identity, director Marcus Nispel’s narrative voice wanders aimlessly, haunted by his past. Having composed several hit music videos from the 1980s for bands like C&C Music Factory and Janet Jackson, Nispel’s colorless and choppy edits rob viewers of swordplay while the lack of character development reduces Ghost to a vengeful, static and unbelievable love interest of Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), who I immediately recognized as Korean. I was tempted to call this review Dances with Vikings but I thought better of it when I realized that wouldn’t be fair to Dances with Wolves, which was actually good.

Nispel borrows a mélange of scenes from other famous action movies. Ghost, sets booby traps and erupts from the water to cut a Viking in two, à la Rambo: First Blood. Imitating Schwarzenegger in Predator, he covers himself in mud and emerges from the ground to slay another clueless, lone Viking. Nispel even takes lines directly from Braveheart, “Run and you may live.” In one hilarious scene, Ghost is chased by a crew of incompetent vikings while tobaggoning down a snowy hill. As if he were being followed by a daft squadron of police stunt-drivers in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, Ghost systematically sheds his pursuers. I liked this scene the first time I saw it in Willow (1988), as played by Madmartigan (Val Kilmer). Russell Means (Last of the Mohicans) plays the role of Pathfinder. As the sage of the tribe, he dispatches a bear with a technique surely learned while under the tutelage of Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Edge, and, later, mercy-kills one of his braves being burned alive in the heir of Daniel Day Lewis in their shared film.

Sadly, this movie’s effluent bloodshed and lack of thoughtful language reduces it to nothing more than a forgettable quest for identity that is more lost than the Mars Pathfinder and Germans’ proven love for Native Americans and David Hasselhoff. (2/5 stars)

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